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SUFI DANCE OF WHIRLING DERVISHES IN ISTANBUL TURKEY

Sufi whirling (or Sufi spinning) is a form of Sama or physically active meditation which originated among Sufis, and which is still practiced by the Sufi Dervishes of the Mevlevi order. It is a customary dance performed within the Sema, or worship ceremony, through which dervishes (also called semazens) aim to reach the source of all perfection, or kemal. This is sought through abandoning one’s nafs, egos or personal desires, by listening to the music, focusing on God, and spinning one’s body in repetitive circles, which has been seen as a symbolic imitation of planets in the Solar System orbiting the sun. As explained by Sufis In the symbolism of the Sema ritual, the semazen’s camel’s hair hat (sikke) represents the tombstone of the ego; his wide, white skirt (tennure) represents t... Read more »

In a Sufi sema, men and women come together in meditation and dance to the accompaniment of musical instruments, such as the tambourine, the bells and the flute. Known for the whirling ... Turkey, with President …

Managing Editor Scott Stuckey has just returned from Turkey and got an insider’s look at Istanbul’s famous Whirling Dervishes ... Sufi order of Muslims–known traditionally for their spirituality, self denial, and tolerance–perform a centuries-old ...

“When I was five, I saw a whirling dervish ... Whirling Dervishes. Their dance is more properly known as the Sema ceremony. The term dervish means an initiate of the Sufi path. Karsli, who had his dervish clothing made for him while in Turkey, said ...

Members of the Mevlevi Sufi Order, a mystical arm of Islam based in Turkey, believe that performing the Sema Ceremony allows a person to eliminate bad habits, cleanse his soul, and express his love for God. More commonly known as the Whirling …

Sufi dervishes have a mystical, almost esoteric existence in popular thought, which associates them with the whirling dance movement ... “I was born in Antakya, Turkey and studied engineering in Istanbul. I then discovered my interest in gymnastics ...

Mid Day •
6 years ago

http://www.mid-day.com/articles/the-dance-of-the-dervish/188516

Faith opens door for Israelis into whirling dervish order

But he kept on searching, and eventually came across the mystical writings of Jalal al-Din Rumi, a 13th century Sufi poet from Persia whose followers set up the order of the Whirling Dervishes after his death, with the trance-like dance a central part of ...

Al Arabiya News •
6 years ago

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/08/29/234898.html

Dance of the dervishes

Defined by tradition Sema has been practiced as an ancient tradition right from Rumi’s time by the ‘Mevlevi’ Sufi order he had founded. In Konya, a town in Turkey ... a group of dervishes who perform ‘Raqs’ or the whirling dance.

KONYA, Turkey ... Sufi masters, is Turkey's second most visited museum, after the Topkapi palace of the Ottoman Sultans in Istanbul, and draws 2 million people a year. About 35,000 people -- including Erdogan -- will watch performances by the whirling ...

Just saying the name stirs the imagination: Whirling Dervishes ... region in central Turkey. We are to watch a dervish ceremony. There’s a sense we were about to witness a secret thing, to be interlopers and see a Sufi Muslim religious ritual not ...

WHIRLING DERVISH ... The whirling dance or Sufi whirling that is proverbially associated with dervishes is best known in the West by the practices (performances) of the Mevlevi order in Turkey, and is part of a formal ceremony known as the Sema.